Advertisements

Yes because it totally blanks your harddrive
"Sash" <> wrote in message
news:cs5kfi$hib$...
>I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
>drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>
> Thanks
>

Advertisements

No because there are boot sector viruses. But chances are it isn't one
of those. I haven't seen one of those in years. Which virus was it and
why did/are you doing a format?

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:49:15 +0000 (UTC), "David Hemingsley"
<> wrote:
>Yes because it totally blanks your harddrive
>"Sash" <> wrote in message
>news:cs5kfi$hib$...
>>I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
>>drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>

Sash wrote:
> I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
> drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>
> Thanks

As lookout mentioned, formatting does not remove everything. Chances are
probably better than 99% that formatting will get rid of your virus, but
if you want that to be 100% sure then do a wipe of the drive. See the
link below:

"Rôgêr" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Sash wrote:
>
> > I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
> > drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
> >
> > Thanks
>
> As lookout mentioned, formatting does not remove everything. Chances are
> probably better than 99% that formatting will get rid of your virus, but
> if you want that to be 100% sure then do a wipe of the drive. See the
> link below:
>
> http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/os/misc/ibm-wipe-zap.html

Good idea. Limited to 8 gigs though.
If it's a maxtor, they have a utility to reset the entire drive back to
factory settings.
Including partitions!
If you really want to clean house, that's the way to do it.

wrote:
> Martha H Adams wrote:
>> Where a computer virus is concerned, I'd want to sterilize the thing.
>> Two thoughts come to mind.
>>
>> 1) cat /dev/zero > hd whichever. After a long time cat complains it
>> can no longer write into the drive because it's full. Whatever used
>> to be in the drive, is now covered over.
>>
>> 2) run badblocks -w on all the drive. Badblocks writes then reads
>> five cycles of data onto the drive, thereby killing whatever was
>> there.
>>
>> I like badblocks because it both kills whatever is there, and
>> checks-out the drive's health.
>>
>> *Be advised!* Both of my suggestions kill what's on the drive. If
>> you guess the least possibility you might want to fetch anything off
>> the drive, don't do these!
>>
>> *And*, I'm an amateur at this stuff: my suggestions here might be
>> followed by much better down this thread, once something develops. So
>> don't stop here!
>>
>> Cheers -- Martha Adams
>
> I didn't have a fucking clue, either.

Reboot then using fdisk, remove all partitions, this will clear the
boot records.
Then re-format.

A quicker way in Linux (after loading a Linux system off floppy or
CD), and one that is 'reversible' if you know how:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=100

This will wipe the first 100 sectors and will 'clean' the first
partition (whether FAT16 or FAT32. The second copy of the FAT remains
intact enabling 100% reconstruction if need be.

Remember that MS's FORMAT has a nasty habit of not writing a fresh
boot sector at the start of the partition if one exists already. This
applies even if the partition length defined in the boot sector is
longer than that defined in the Partition Table (this being a recipie
for disaster if not immediately then later).

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:02:10 -0000, "Sash" <> wrote:
>I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
>drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.

Yes.
>Thanks

-Barry
========
"I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for
their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible;
in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him."
[A. Einstein (Letter to Edgar Meyer, Jan. 2, 1915)]

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:05:20 GMT, (Peter)
wrote:
>On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 20:03:19 +0000 (UTC), (Martha H
>Adams) wrote:
>
>>Where a computer virus is concerned, I'd want to sterilize the thing.
>>Two thoughts come to mind.
>>
>>*Be advised!* Both of my suggestions kill what's on the drive. If
>>you guess the least possibility you might want to fetch anything off
>>the drive, don't do these!
>>
>Two other ideas:
>
>Using the 'rescue' floppy or similar:
>fdisk /MBR
>
>This will re-write the master boot code taking any viruses with it.
>
>Reboot then using fdisk, remove all partitions, this will clear the
>boot records.
>Then re-format.
>
>A quicker way in Linux (after loading a Linux system off floppy or
>CD), and one that is 'reversible' if you know how:
>dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=100
>
>This will wipe the first 100 sectors and will 'clean' the first
>partition (whether FAT16 or FAT32. The second copy of the FAT remains
>intact enabling 100% reconstruction if need be.
>
>Remember that MS's FORMAT has a nasty habit of not writing a fresh
>boot sector at the start of the partition if one exists already. This
>applies even if the partition length defined in the boot sector is
>longer than that defined in the Partition Table (this being a recipie
>for disaster if not immediately then later).

That's called a low level format. Calling/emailing the manufacturer
will get you instructions on how to do that.

"Martha H Adams" <> wrote in message
news:cs6k67$ol$...
> Where a computer virus is concerned, I'd want to sterilize the thing.
> Two thoughts come to mind.
>
> 1) cat /dev/zero > hd whichever. After a long time cat complains it
> can no longer write into the drive because it's full. Whatever used
> to be in the drive, is now covered over.
>
> 2) run badblocks -w on all the drive. Badblocks writes then reads
> five cycles of data onto the drive, thereby killing whatever was
> there.
>
> I like badblocks because it both kills whatever is there, and
> checks-out the drive's health.
>
> *Be advised!* Both of my suggestions kill what's on the drive. If
> you guess the least possibility you might want to fetch anything off
> the drive, don't do these!
>
> *And*, I'm an amateur at this stuff: my suggestions here might be
> followed by much better down this thread, once something develops. So
> don't stop here!
>
> Cheers -- Martha Adams

Thanks very much Martha for your reply.
You actually put the question in a much better way, I should really have
rephrased the question to say as you have put:
Does just formatting a disc have a different effect than "killing the disc,
eg by writting to it" as in the way you have described. Excellent point!!
Thanks
>

Can you do this with xp?
>
> This will re-write the master boot code taking any viruses with it.
> Reboot then using fdisk, remove all partitions, this will clear the
> boot records. Then re-format.

So then would this rewrite absolutely any possible area that a virus can
possible get, so as a super last resort would this absolutely without any
shadow of a doubt
get rid of any possible virus that could ever conceivable possible remotely
have become spread to some nether regions of the system?

>
> A quicker way in Linux (after loading a Linux system off floppy or
> CD), and one that is 'reversible' if you know how:
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=100

I wouldn't know linux from a pineapple.
>
> This will wipe the first 100 sectors and will 'clean' the first
> partition (whether FAT16 or FAT32. The second copy of the FAT remains
> intact enabling 100% reconstruction if need be.
>
> Remember that MS's FORMAT has a nasty habit of not writing a fresh
> boot sector at the start of the partition if one exists already. This
> applies even if the partition length defined in the boot sector is
> longer than that defined in the Partition Table (this being a recipie
> for disaster if not immediately then later)

So are you saying a "format" does not actually completely destroy
everything? Is it possible to still get a virus back after a "format"?

Thanks for your reply, its appreciated, you can't believe the trouble I have
had today..

"Lookout" <> wrote in message
news:...
> No because there are boot sector viruses. But chances are it isn't one
> of those. I haven't seen one of those in years. Which virus was it and
> why did/are you doing a format?
>
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 15:49:15 +0000 (UTC), "David Hemingsley"
> <> wrote:
>
>>Yes because it totally blanks your harddrive
>>"Sash" <> wrote in message
>>news:cs5kfi$hib$...
>>>I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
>>>drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>>>
>>> Thanks

Two reasons.

1. I ran every single updated virus definition that I had, which meant the
online trend house call one that along with macafe online viral scan, avg
antivirus and the new etrust from computer associates all day I ran those
plus in safe mode, and spybot and adaware, it didn't pick up anything, still
the virus was there it was a virus I think that was athe tick virus they
call it, it was comming from some system file or similar I can't remember
the exact name but it was something tick and it was a disguising itself as a
windows system file.

Then for some strange reason Zone Alarm was giving a problem, it was making
my computer freeze up, I blame zone alarm becuase after three fresh installs
the freezing up activity was still there, after reading about zone alarm I
discovered that this activity has been noted by users of zone alarm, it does
exactly the same thing as I described.

Freezing up wihtout the ability to switch it on and off, now that was too
much of a coincidence, plus given the fact that now I have deleted zone
alarm and done a fresh install the system is back to being perfect
again..........

I am now seeing viruses in a completely different light, I thought that if I
had my free copy of AVG bubbling away in the background I was safe, I didn't
even ever bother with a firewall, it is only thanks to the firewall that I
even knew of the viruses existence. How awful these are.
>>>
>>
>

"Rôgêr" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Sash wrote:
>
>> I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
>> drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>>
>> Thanks
>
> As lookout mentioned, formatting does not remove everything. Chances are
> probably better than 99% that formatting will get rid of your virus, but
> if you want that to be 100% sure then do a wipe of the drive. See the link
> below:
>
> http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/os/misc/ibm-wipe-zap.htm

So if you completely wipe the drive meaning you wipe it with writting to it,
then will that definitely destroy any virus that can possible have gotten
into it?

"Richard" <Anonymous@127.001> wrote in message
news:...
>
> "Rôgêr" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Sash wrote:
>>
>> > I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a
>> > hard
>> > drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>> >
>> > Thanks
>>
>> As lookout mentioned, formatting does not remove everything. Chances are
>> probably better than 99% that formatting will get rid of your virus, but
>> if you want that to be 100% sure then do a wipe of the drive. See the
>> link below:
>>
>> http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/os/misc/ibm-wipe-zap.html
>
> Good idea. Limited to 8 gigs though.
> If it's a maxtor, they have a utility to reset the entire drive back to
> factory settings.
> Including partitions!
> If you really want to clean house, that's the way to do it.

Mine is a Dell.

I have come away from todays episode with a totally knew understanding of
how difficult these viruses can be to actually get rid of.
>
>

"Plato" <|@|.|> wrote in message
news:41e6ae0b$1$67899$...
> Sash wrote:
>>
>> I just had a terrible infection, and I want to know if formatting a hard
>> drive will 100% get rid of these viruses.
>
> Not if its a boot sector virus.

How can I wipe the boot out, so that if there is anyting in it I know it is
destroyed. The same thing happened with my main drive, nothing at all picked
up this virus, nothing, and so the same thing could possibly have happened
with a boot sector virus, eg. it might not get picked up. So I want to make
sure I have wiped everything off the face of my computer planet before
reinstalling again. (If I have another need in the future)
>
>

Share This Page

Welcome to Velocity Reviews!

Welcome to the Velocity Reviews, the place to come for the latest tech news and reviews.

Please join our friendly community by clicking the button below - it only takes a few seconds and is totally free. You'll be able to chat with other enthusiasts and get tech help from other members.
Sign up now!